


JWP 2020 #30: The Time of Despair

by methylviolet10b



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Canon Related, M/M, POV Minor Character, Prompt Fic, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25623871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: Mrs Ronder hears what Mr Holmes says - and does not say. Written in response to JWP #30 over on Watson's Woes.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22
Collections: Watson's Woes JWP Collection: 2020





	JWP 2020 #30: The Time of Despair

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings** : Mrs Ronder's POV from the final conversation in The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger. Definitely spoils that ACD story, so if you haven't read that, you might not want to read this. Thoughts of suicide, despair, love, pain, and the decision to live (or not). And written in a huge rush. You have been warned.
> 
>  **Prompt** : The One-Legged News-Seller and Other Spear-Carriers: Have today's offering from the POV of one of the background characters in any version of Sherlock Holmes, including characters who were never named.

“Your life is not your own,” Mr Holmes said. “Keep your hands off it.”

He was speaking to me, but not just to me. You don’t grow up in the circus without learning to read people. His friend Doctor Watson was an open book, but Mr Holmes had been opaque to me until that moment. For just a second I caught a glimpse of the man, not just the subject of the stories that had led me to ask for him.

He was speaking to me from experience. He’d known despair once, the terrible weight of days that stretched on and on with no hope of ever getting better. Yet he had kept going, and somehow things had turned around for him, and now he spoke to me as if the same miracle might be possible.

“What use is it to anyone?” I meant every word, dredged them up from the depths of my pain.

Mr Holmes glanced at his friend, just the briefest flicker of his eyes before returning his attention to me. “How can you tell? The example of patient suffering is in itself the most precious of all lessons to an impatient world.”

Oh. _Oh_. It was so very clear. Mr Holmes was speaking to me from his own experience, but more – he had witnessed a similar desire for death in his friend once, and the memory of that still had the power to haunt him. I had read everything I could about Mr Holmes, all the stories published by his doctor friend, and it wasn’t hard to guess when that might have been. It was easy enough to see that had his friend ended his pain as I intended to do, it would have been the death of two men, not one.

They had both lived, and they had found their way to each other. Maybe someone born and raised outside of a circus wouldn’t have seen it, but I had seen love there in many forms: man to man, woman to woman, a memorable trio, as well as man to woman, the only pairing acceptable to townie eyes. Even as miserable as I was, I could be glad for them. But it only underscored the differences between them and myself.

I raised my veil to make that difference perfectly clear.

I thought about their reactions for hours after they left. I had seen horror, for the ruin of my face was a horror. But that had vanished far more quickly than I ever could have imagined. In Doctor Watson, it changed into grief – grief for me, for my pain and suffering, but not pity, and not revulsion. That was astonishing enough. But Mr Holmes –

Mr Holmes had looked at me with pain, and with regret, and with understanding. He thought he understood my gesture and what it meant, and he _mourned_ my loss and his inability to prevent it.

Doctor Watson was a respected medical man. Mr Holmes was a famous detective. Either one of them could have had me seized for my own ‘protection’ and committed to an asylum. They could have stopped me with ease.

Instead they respected my choice even though it was clear neither of them agreed with it. They both wanted me to live.

They both thought that maybe I would be glad of the choice to live, someday. Because they had.

I don’t believe it myself. But for their sakes, I sent them my bottle.

They survived three years. I cannot see going on that long, but I will wait and see what the next three months bring.

I can always find another bottle if I need to.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted July 30, 2020.


End file.
